Thanks to my colleague Matt Hongoltz-Hetling for the heads up on this: It seems we’re both way behind the curve, but did YOU know that since 2016, there’s been a country-ish pop-rock song by a touring artist about the Upper Valley’s favorite comeback kid? Because we did not.

Here is a snippet from Ron Pope’s description of the song “White River Junction,” via his YouTube:

“White River Junction” is the first song I wrote for this album and in my mind, it is the quickest route on the road to explaining “What does the new album sound like?” It’s a pretty vivid narrative; I saw a sign that said White River Junction when we were on tour in Vermont. I was sick and exhausted from months of non-stop traveling and anxious to get off the freezing bus at the next stop to get back on stage (which is the only place I ever want to be when we’re on tour). Every once in a while, on the road, I’ll look up how far we are from Atlanta even though I haven’t lived there in years; all I could think was, “Damn, we’re far from home.”

It also deals with drug use quite a bit (see the refrain, “Cocaine / cocaine / cocaine”), so there’s that. The song was posted in March 2016 and has more than 11,600 views on YouTube as of today.

Ron Pope was raised in Marietta, Georgia, and founded the record label Brooklyn Basement Records with his wife, Blair, in Nashville, according to his website and Wikipedia page. (And if it makes me sound old to cite a rock-and-roll artist’s Wikipedia page in describing him because of a song that came out more than two years ago, then that’s just how it’s gonna have to be.)